the role of private tutoring in admission to higher

The role of private tutoring in admission to highereducation: Evidence from a highly selective

university in Kazakhstan

ANAS HAJARp and SAULE ABENOVA

Graduate School of Education, Nazarbayev University, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan

THEMATIC ARTICLE

Received: September 20, 2020 • Accepted: January 4, 2021

Published online: May 7, 2021

© 2021 The Author(s)

ABSTRACT

The present mixed-methods study explored first-year undergraduate students of a highly selective uni-versity in Kazakhstan’s perceptions of having private tutoring (PT) and how far it had helped them gain aplace at this university. The quantitative data were collected through a close-ended questionnaire from 144participants to understand their socioeconomic backgrounds and PT experiences over the previous twoyears, in terms of the scope, types, costs and the subjects studied in the PT they had received. The sub-sequent qualitative data were collected through interviewing 8 participants to capture in detail theperceived impact of PT on their overall achievement. The study found that 86 out of 144 participants (60%)had received PT. Most of them (72%) had sought PT as an enrichment strategy to obtain higher scores inhigh-stakes examinations and thus secure a place at that university. Some participants explained the dis-advantages of PT, including the financial burden on their families and it being a potentially unfairadvantage in a competitive context. The findings of the study are instructive for educators and policymakers in Kazakhstan in revealing the limitations of schooling in the public sector. The pedagogical im-plications and areas for ongoing research are suggested.

KEYWORDS

private tutoring (PT), high-stakes examinations, access to university, Kazakhstani undergraduate students

pCorresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]

Hungarian Educational Research Journal 11 (2021) 2, 124–142DOI: 10.1556/063.2021.00001

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https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7513-9689

mailto:[email protected]

http://dx.doi.org/10.1556/063.2021.00001

INTRODUCTION

Globally, higher education enrolment has experienced a vast expansion. This has partly theresult of higher birth rates and increased school participation, and the perceived importance ofhigher education for subsequent life opportunities (Kyvik, 2009). Despite the expansion of thesector, the issue of equity of access to universities has been a major concern in many highereducation systems worldwide (Berg, 2020). After more than four decades, Trow’s (1973, p. 25)observation of the difficulty of ensuring equitable access to higher education remains relevant:‘the question of the principles and processes of selection and admission to higher education isthe crucial point where higher education touches most closely on the social structure’. There arevarious admission practices in different countries, but most of them are still largely based onuniversity entrance exams (Prakhov & Sergienko, 2020). Consequently, families competing foraccess to prestigious higher education institutions for their children, who need to get high scoreson high-stakes exams, tend to coach their children themselves, while some hire private tutors.These ambitious families, as Hajar (2019) suggests, hold the view that doing well academically isthe clearest path to a better life and so sometimes employ private tutors as a tool to provideadditional training in the key subjects required by universities for admission. However, studentsfrom disadvantaged households tend to find themselves in a less favourable position becausethey can afford little or no private tutoring (henceforth, PT) sessions, even with less qualifiedtutors, adding to their social disadvantage (Prakhov & Sergienko, 2020). As Bray (2021, p. xi)remarks, PT can be ‘a major vehicle for maintaining and exacerbating social inequalities’, whichraises concerns about how to achieve ‘equitable and inclusive quality education’.

PT refers to paying for lessons in academic subjects received outside school hours (Bray,2020a, p. 100). PT can take various forms, including one-to-one, small-group, live lectures,video-recorded lectures, and online coaching. Recently, PT has received growing recognitionfrom researchers, educators and policymakers because of its potential influence on and impli-cations for issues of social equality, economic growth and the operation of formal educationsystems (Bray & Lykins, 2012). This is evidenced by the increasing number of books on the topic(e.g., Bray, 2021; Bray, Kobakhidze, & Kwo, 2020; Entrich, 2018; Kim & Jung, 2019) and thenumber of special issues in scholarly journals, such as Orbis Scholae (�Sťastn�y & Kobakhidze,2020), the East China Normal University Review of Education (Zhang & Bray, 2019) and theEuropean Journal of Education (Gy}ori, 2020). Many families use some form of tutoring attransition points in the formal education system to try to guarantee successful transition to thenext level (Hajar, 2018; Ireson & Rushforth, 2011). One of the key education transition points isfrom school to university.

In Kazakhstan, the context of the present study, few empirical research studies on PT exist(Akimenko, 2017; Kalikova & Rakhimzhanova, 2009). In those that do studies, little is knownabout students’ experiences and reflections on them. Although Akimenko (2017) attempted toqualitatively investigate the perceptions of Kazakhstani high school students who had grouptutoring in English at one private institute in Nur-Sultan, she did not offer any interview ex-cerpts to capture her participants’ perceptions of their PT experience. The mixed-method studyreported in this paper attempts to address this research gap by focussing on the fee-paid tutoringthat some first-year Kazakhstani undergraduate students received within the previous two years,including preparation for high-stakes entrance examinations to gain places at a university inKazakhstan with high selection criteria. The entrance to this autonomous government-funded

Hungarian Educational Research Journal 11 (2021) 2, 124–142 125


university requires an International English Language Testing System (henceforth, IELTS) scoreof at least 5.5 overall and passing SAT Subject Tests (mathematics, physics, and biology). Thispaper is organised in four sections. It begins with an overview of previous research on PT incentral Asia and its relationship to access to higher education institutions. The objectives of thisstudy are then presented, followed by the rationale for adopting a mixed-methods approach. Thethird section presents the results from the questionnaire completed by 144 participants and theeight individual semi-structured student interviews. The paper closes with some reflections onthe importance of taking account of the impact of PT on social equity, with an emphasis on theimportance of establishing a balance and social continuity between the students’ lives inside andoutside the classroom environment.

REVIEW OF PT RESEARCH AND ITS ROLE IN ACCESS TO HIGHEREDUCATION IN CENTRAL ASIA AND BEYOND

The phenomenon of PT has long been present in East Asian societies, such as Hong Kong,Japan, and Taiwan, deeply rooted in Confucian culture which values education and diligence forsocial mobility, including notions of elitism (Yung & Bray, 2017, p. 99). It has since becomeendemic in many parts of the world. Nevertheless, Research on PT has not kept up with theglobal expansion of this phenomenon. This is mainly because PT is less structured, and itsprevalence is regarded by some governments as a criticism of the mainstream schooling forwhich the state is responsible (Zhang & Bray, 2020). Despite its largely hidden nature, a pictureof the scale and intensity of PT in many parts of the world has emerged. As Bray (2020b, p. 3)remarks, rough estimates of PT ‘are part of the jigsaw puzzle which can be used to assemble thepicture’. In the Republic of Korea, for instance, 82.5% of elementary school pupils were esti-mated to have received PT in 2018 (KOSIS, 2019). In China, 48.3% of sampled students in a2017 nationwide survey were engaged in some form of PT (Liu, 2018). Concerning Japan, a 2017survey showed that 33.7% of elementary students and 51.9% of lower secondary students inTokyo attended tutorial enterprises called juku (Kimura, 2018).

In Central Asian countries, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbe-kistan, the PT market has become increasingly visible since the collapse of the socialist bloc inthe early 1990s (Silova, 2010). Reliance on PT in the post-Soviet era is regarded as an effectiveway for children ‘to adapt to the new socio-political realities and cope with post-socialist systemchanges’ (Silova, 2010, p. 328), especially since the majority of students were unfamiliar with thetest-based examinations, which then came into use. It was believed that, like other skills, per-sonal knowledge could be purchased. The few studies on PT in Central Asia reported in Silova’s(2009) edited book showed that more than 50% of the students sampled had participated insome type of PT during the final grade of secondary school. More specifically, the scale of PTvaried according to country; 64.8% of all students surveyed had received PT in Kazakhstan(Kalikova & Rakhimzhanova, 2009), with 60% in Tajikistan (Kodirov & Amonov, 2009), and52.5% in Kyrgyzstan (Bagdasarova & Ivanov, 2009). In Uzbekistan, a recent study was con-ducted by Khaydarov (2020) on 109 Grade 12 students in two selective schools about their PTexperiences over the previous 12 months. Khaydarov (2020) found that 95% of students hadreceived PT, mainly to help them prepare for state university examinations (97%), followed by

126 Hungarian Educational Research Journal 11 (2021) 2, 124–142


understanding their subjects better (42%) and improving their examination marks in theircurrent schools (23%).

In Kazakhstan, the context of the present study, Kalikova and Rakhimzhanova’s (2009)quantitatively examined the PT experience of 1,004 first-year university students from the sixlargest state universities in the cities of Almaty and Shymkent in the last year of secondaryschooling. They reported that 59.9% of students had received tutoring (private lessons, prepa-ratory courses, or both), to prepare for university entrance examinations (42%). The studentssurveyed in Kalikova and Rakhimzhanova’s (2009) study mentioned other reasons for havingPT, including to improve their understanding of the subjects taught at schools (31%), to fillknowledge gaps (26%) and to compensate for the low quality of education in mainstreamschools (11%). Kalikova and Rakhimzhanova (2009, p. 103) also found that the most popular PTsubjects were mathematics (67%), history (36%), physics (36%), and the Kazkah language andliterature (17%), given that mathematics, history and the Kazakh language are compulsorysubjects in the Unified National Test (UNT), a high-level entry test for most Kazakhstaniuniversities. Therefore, the UNT is highly tutored. The UNT is structured into two blocks: thefirst consists of compulsory tests in the history of Kazakhstan, mathematical literacy, andreading literacy; the second block comprises examinations in the two specialist subjects of theapplicant’s choice (Chankseliani, Qoraboyev, & Gimranova, 2020). However, the UNT is notconsidered part of the admission process for access to the university the participants of thepresent study competed to attend. As already mentioned, the assessment tests required are theIELTS and SAT Subject Test (mathematics, physics, and biology). Although Kazakhstan hasattempted to turn its back on ‘the Soviet-style, corrupt system of university-based admissionsand the establishment of centralised examinations for student selection’ (Chankseliani et al.,2020, p. 996), the centralised examinations in Kazakhstan make access to university ‘morecompetitive, and the private tutoring market has been quick to take advantage of this situation’(Kalikova & Rakhimzhanova, 2009, p. 98). Related to this, Carlsen (2020, p. 19) suggests that thePT phenomenon has expanded in Central Asia mainly due to central testing system, low salariesin the formal system and increasing demands for access to prestigious higher education in-stitutions. Carlsen (2020, p. 20), therefore, argues that PT in Central Asia can contribute to‘increasing social inequities, distorting curricula, inviting corruption, and depriving the state oftax revenues’.

Although the above few quantitative studies have given some insights into the reasons for theprevalence of PT in central Asia and its impact on students’ access to universities, students’voices and critical reflections on their PT experiences remain few (e.g. Akimenko, 2017). Thepresent paper adds to this knowledge by reporting first-year Kazakhstani engineering students’views of the PT they had participated in before their studies, using both quantitative andqualitative data. The participants in the current study came from a highly ambitious universitywith the best results among Kazakhstani higher education institutions.

STUDY DETAILS

Aims

The purpose of this mixed methods research is to unravel the association between receiving PTand access to a prestigious university in Kazakhstan, based on the voices of first-year



undergraduate students. Giving students a voice, the opportunity to reflect on their experiencesof PT, is at the heart of the present study. Without capturing students’ perceptions and out-of-school experiences, teachers, researchers and policymakers only have access to a partial pictureof students’ actual learning experiences and achievements. This study is guided by the followingresearch questions:

1. What are the quantities, types, subjects and costs of PT received by the sampled participants inthe preceding 24 months?

2. How do the participants evaluate their PT experience?

Participants

The present study focused on first-year undergraduate students because, as Silova, Bray, andZabulionis (2006, p. 63) suggest, their memories of their PT at secondary school are relativelyfresh and they are less likely to feel uncomfortable reflecting on it. The students selected werefrom the Engineering Department since they were more likely to have received PT than studentsfrom other departments (e.g., Department of History and Religious Studies, Department ofLanguages and Literature, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, and Department ofEconomics) due to the high level of competition for course entrance. All were citizens ofKazakhstan and not known to the researchers prior to collecting the data. Initial access to theparticipants was through the help of two members of the administrative staff in the EngineeringDepartment following a meeting between them and the researchers. The researchers explainedthe significance and the purpose of the study, together with the participants’ rights, in themeeting.

Data collection and analysis

The quantitative data were collected using a close-ended survey (see Appendix A). The surveysought to elicit certain dimensions of PT, including the scope and, types of PT, its prevalence,subject choices and parental expenditure before the students’ acceptance at the target university.Initially the survey questionnaire was developed in English and then translated into Russian andKazakh. In January 2020, one of the administrative staff sent an email to the first-year under-graduate students in the Engineering Department with a link to the survey designed in Qualtrics.The survey remained available online for nearly two months (January–February 2020), in orderto obtain a sufficient completion rate for analysis. A total of 144 out of the targeted 226 students,whose ages ranged between 18 and 20 years old completed the survey questionnaire, making aresponse rate of 63%. The survey was field-tested, revised and field-tested again with 40 par-ticipants who had PT experience. The process of piloting the survey was to assess the appro-priacy relevance of each item to measure the construct it was intended to measure, and theclarity of the items.

Informed consent was given in the first part of the survey. Those that took the survey wereover the age of 18 and willing to participate in the research. Table 1 shows some demographiccharacteristics of the survey participants. Approximately the same number of males and femalescomposed the sample (48.6% male, 43.1% female, with the exclusion of 12 participants who didnot respond to the question relating to their gender and origins).



The final item of the survey asked the respondents to write their email address if they werewilling to participate in an individual semi-structured interview. Eighteen students expressed theirinitial willingness to take part in follow-up interviews. An email was sent to these participants inKazakh, Russian and English about the aims of the study, their rights and the requirements of theirparticipation in the interview part. Only 8 students (3 males and 5 females) responded to this email.The second researcher who is a research assistant to the first researcher of the paper is Kazakh andspeaks the same languages (Kazakh and Russian) as the participants, so she organised with theparticipants through mobile calls and text messages, a suitable time and place for the interviews.One semi-structured, in-depth interview with each participant was conducted. The researchers hadan interview schedule to keep them on track, but could ask questions with some flexibility duringthe interviews. The interview data were in Kazakh or Russian, according to the participants’preferences, so that they could express their ideas clearly and with confidence. They mainly focusedon the participants’ reported motives for taking part in PT, along with its benefits and disadvan-tages, from the participants’ perspectives. Each interview lasted approximately an hour and tookplace in a private room on the university campus. With the participants’ permission, all the in-terviews were audiotaped and transcribed (see Appendix B for a sample of interview questions).

Clarke and Braun’s (2013) systematic guidelines for conducting thematic analysis wereadopted to analyse the semi-structured interviews conducted with the participants. Thematicanalysis is ‘a method for identifying and interpreting patterns of meaning (themes) acrossqualitative data’ in rich detail (Clarke & Braun, 2013, p. 218). The researchers familiarisedthemselves with the data through reading and rereading the interview transcripts ‘actively,analytically and critically’ after the transcripts had been translated into English (Clarke & Braun,2013, p. 205), to discover both the surface and hidden meanings of the participants’ responses.After the process of familiarisation, the data were grouped to generate the initial codes,particularly in response to the second research question. For this purpose, a ‘selected readingapproach’ (Van Manen, 1997, p. 93) was used; as the researchers read the transcripts, theyhighlighted the statements that captured the participants’ evaluation of PT. After that, codes thatshared features in general were collated to generate themes. Two core themes were identified:‘motives for having PT’ and ‘evaluation of receiving PT’. The tentative themes derived from thecoded data and the entire data set were tested. Once all the themes had been found, the sub-themes within each main theme were identified.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This section commences by addressing the first research question and presenting the descriptivedata on the demographic characteristics of the sampled participants, together with the scale,

Table1. Demographic characteristics of the participant sample

Gender Origin

Male Female Urban Rural

Sample 70 (48.6%) 62 (43.1%) 124 (86.1%) 8 (5.6%)Sample size: 132; Missing: 12



types, subjects and costs of the PT that the participants received. It then turns to answer thesecond research question related to the participants’ evaluation of their PT experiences. Thequalitative interview data obtained from 8 interviewees were mainly used to analyse the re-sponses to the second question of the study.

RQ 1 WHAT ARE THE QUANTITIES, MODES, SUBJECTS AND COSTS OF THEPT RECEIVED BY THE SAMPLE OF PARTICIPANTS OVER THEPREVIOUS 2 YEARS?

Geographic and educational inequalities to higher education access

As shown in Table 1, 124 out of 132 participants (86.1%) came from urban areas, whereas only 8participants (5.6%) were from rural areas. As previously mentioned, the survey respondentswere 144, but 12 did not answer the questions relating to their gender and origin. These figuresalign with Chankseliani et al.’s (2020) suggestion that rural school graduates in Kazakhstan areless likely to take part in the central examination system than urban school graduates to secure aplace at one of the Kazakhstani universities. Chankseliani et al. (2020) made this claim withreference to the National Testing Centre (NTC) survey of Kazakhstan in 2018. According to thissurvey, there were 146,034 school graduates in 2018, 72,746 of whom finished their schooling inrural areas; if all rural school graduates applied to higher education, only 12% could expect toobtain a state grant (cited in Chankseliani et al., 2020, p. 1001). The same survey by the NTC ofKazakhstan (2018) showed that 54% of students from Nur-Sultan, the capital of Kazakhstan,obtained state grants, whereas only 24% of students from rural areas succeeded in obtainingstate grants (cited in Chankseliani et al., 2020, p. 1001). Some previous studies (e.g. Bray & Kwo,2014 in Hong Kong; Kim & Lee, 2010 in South Korea; Liu & Bray, 2017 in China; and Mahmud& Bray, 2017 in Bangladesh) have also showed that the coverage of PT is likely to be higher inurban areas than in rural areas.

The distribution of the participants according to their educational and geographical char-acteristics is shown in Table 2. The overwhelming majority of the participants graduated fromschools located in the most populated cities of Kazakhstan, namely Nur-Sultan (formerlyAstana) (n.44), Almaty (n.29) and Shymkent (n.24). Interestingly, most of the participants hadgraduated from ‘elite’ secondary schools such as Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools (NIS), BilimInnovation Lyceums (BIL), Physics-Mathematics State Schools (PMSS), Boarding School Daryn(BSD), School for gifted children Zerde (SGCZ), in addition to other lyceums and gymnasiums.

Table 2. Educational and geographical characteristics of the sample

NIS BIL PMSS SGCZ BSD MS

Total 48 28 13 3 4 48Nur-Sultan 9 8 5 2 3 17Almaty 10 3 6 1 9Shymkent 17 3 4Other cities 12 14 2 1 18



Hence, the ratio of elite school graduates to other regular/mainstream school (MS) graduateswho gained places at this highly competitive university is 66.7%–33.3%.

The scope and mode of delivery of PT

The quantitative data also showed that the scope of PT within the survey population surveyedwas almost 60% (86 out of 144), meaning that three out of five applicants had gained universityplacement having had PT. This result resonates to an extent with that of Kalikova andRakhimzhanova (2009), who found that a large number of first-year university students inKazakhstan had used PT to help them prepare for high-stakes examinations (42%).

As regards the modes of PT delivery, half the participants took PT lessons in groups, with37% of students studying in groups of less than 10 students and 13% of students studying ingroups of 10 or more students (see Fig. 1). 23 out of 86 participants (27%) reported that theyreceived both individual and group tutoring, while 14 participants (16%) had one to onetutoring. This finding aligns with that of Silova (2009, p. 74), who found that over 40% ofstudents in Central Asia opted to have PT in groups because it was more affordable than in-dividual tutoring for many households, and group tutoring may be more profitable for bothprivate tutors and tutoring companies. Only 5 participants (7%) had received online tutoring;however, more students are likely to have online tutoring during the COVID-19 pandemic. AsZhang and Bray (2020) point out, with the global outbreak of COVID-19 at the beginning of2020 ‘many face-to-face tutoring enterprises closed alongside schools but ones employingtechnology for distance learning experiencing a sudden boom’.

Subjects, number of hours and costs of PT

The subjects studied by individual participants according to the questionnaire survey varied, butoverall, the participants studied nine subjects. As shown in Fig. 2, the vast majority of re-spondents reported receiving PT in English language (n.35). They also took PT in Maths (n.21),

Individual14

(16%)

Ind + Gro23

(27%)Small group31

(37%)

Large group13

(13%)

Online5

(7%)

Individual Ind + Gro Small group Large group Online

Fig. 1. Modes of PT delivery



Physics (n.11) and chemistry (n.6), history (n.4), biology (n.3), the Kazakh language (n.2),geography (n.2) and Russian language (n.2). These results are different from those of Kalikovaand Rakhimzhanova (2009) who found that their first-year university participants took PTmainly in mathematics (67.2%), followed by history (36.2%), physics (36%) and the state lan-guage and literature (17.8%). This discrepancy can be explained by the fact that subjects indemand for PT are predominantly those that are crucial at the transition points (Bray & Kwo,2013; Hajar, 2019). The participants in Kalikova and Rakhimzhanova’s (2009) study needed toexcel in the UNT test, which includes mathematics, history and the state language and literature.Conversely, the participants in the present study applied for a highly selective university inKazakhstan, whose entrance examinations require high proficiency in English and mathematicalskills. Therefore, these subjects were the subjects in demand for PT from the participants.Notably, 4 questionnaire completers had received PT in history, which might be because theyhad planned to take the UNT to enrol in other Kazakhstani universities if they failed to secure aplace at their first choice of university. In a follow-up interview one student said that ‘in myGrade11, I had tutoring sessions in Maths, English and history because my mother wanted me toprepare for both the UNT and SAT tests’ (Participant 5).

In terms of the number of PT hours received, the majority of the respondents (n.59) indi-cated that they had received 12 h of PT or less per month, while a slightly fewer number ofrespondents (n.48) reported having received 13–24 h of PT per month. Only 7 participantsindicated that they had taken 25–36 h of PT over a one-month period. The most intensivenumber of PT hours was 37, taken by 8 participants. What can be clearly observed in Table 3,below, is that the number of PT participants increases with lower costs and decreases as costs

Table 3. Average cost of PT per month and number of hours of PT received per month

Hours

Average cost of PT per month

20 k-or less 21 k–40 k 41 k–60 k 61 k–80 k 81 k–90 k 100 k->

12 h or less 21 25 7 3 0 313–24 h 14 16 12 4 1 125–36 h 1 0 2 2 0 137 h and more 0 2 1 2 1 2

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

English Math Physics Chemistry History Biology Kazakhlanguage

RussianLanguage

Geography

Fig. 2. Number of participants in PT according to subject



rise. This reverse association between the number of hours per month and the cost of PT permonth demonstrates that participants favour time over costs. In other words, participants in PTseem to prefer to pay less per month because they can have more PT sessions. With higher costs,the number of hours attended are fewer, which suggests that high prices for PT were not fav-oured by the participants.

Overall, there is no clear indication whether the cost of PT impacted on the number of hoursparticipants were able to take. However, looking at the distribution of costs per month, it seemsthat those who paid less per month received more PT hourly sessions than those who paidhigher prices. That is, those who paid between 46 USD (20,000 KZT) and 93 USD (40,000 KZT)per month had had more hours of tutoring (n.82). The number of those who paid between 95USD (41,000 KZT) and 232 USD (100,000 KZT) was approximately half that of those who paidless (n.41).

RQ 2 HOW DO THE PARTICIPANTS EVALUATE THEIR PT EXPERIENCE?

This section provides the findings on the participants’ motives for having PT, together withtheir perceptions of the advantages and disadvantages of having PT based on their PT expe-riences. Figure 3 presents the thematic map from the analysis of qualitative data.

Motives for having PT

The results of the descriptive analysis of the frequency of the reasons for having PT are providedin Table 4. The most common reason the respondents gave was that they took PT to prepare foruniversity examinations (72%). The data also showed that 42% of the respondents receivedtutoring with the aim of improving examinations marks in school exams, and 23% of the

17

Evaluation of PT

Disadvantages of PTAdvantages of having PT

Classroom

environment

Increased responsibility

and self-discipline

Test familiarisation

and practiceFinancial burdenUnfair

competition

Motives for having PT

Enrichment strategy Remedial strategy

Fig. 3. The final thematic map derived from students’ interview data



students wanted to understand their subjects better. On the other hand, other reasons such asparental demands, teacher recommendations and doing what friends did, had no significantimpact on students choosing to have PT.

The interview data collected from 8 interviewees revealed the use of PT as an enrichmentand/or remedial strategy. Silova (2009) pointed out that PT as an enrichment strategy impliesusing PT to gain educational advancement opportunities at light of high competition levels,which can be achieved according to good results in high-stakes examinations. Conversely, PT asa remedial strategy implies PT for students whose academic performance does not meet theminimal requirements of schooling and hence needs to be improved (Silova, 2009). The dataanalysis shows that all the interviewees received PT as an enrichment strategy, i.e. as a prepa-ration for the high-stakes entrance examination to win a place at their chosen university inKazakhstan. These high-stakes examinations are IELTS and SAT tests. The following extractsexemplify this point:

Extract 1:Interviewer: Why did you have private tutoring in the last two years?Participant 2: I attended the IELTS preparation course to enter this university. My Englishlevel was not up to the level of this university.Participant 3: I was preparing for the final school examinations and I also wanted to preparefor the university entry examination.Participant 5: I had private tutoring for six months to prepare for the IELTS and SAT tests.My mother asked me to prepare for the UNT test instead, but I insisted as I wanted to attendthis leading university in my country.Participant 7: When I tried to do the IELTS test, I saw that my English level was low.Therefore, I decided to attend English courses. I also attended Maths and Physics for the SATtest.

This finding does not concur with Akimenko’s (2017) qualitative investigation of the per-ceptions of Kazakhstani high school students who had received group tutoring in English at aprivate institute in Nur-Sultan, the capital of Kazakhstan. Akimenko (2017) found that herparticipants had received PT in English for mainly remedial purposes, to increase their Englishvocabulary and improve their understanding of certain grammar concepts that they had beenunable to grasp at school. The analysis of the interview data in the present study found that three

Table 4. Numerical data of reasons for having PT

Reasons Frequency (n 5 86) Percent

I was preparing for university entranceexams

62 72%

I wanted to improve my exam scores atschool

36 42%

I wanted to learn subjects better 20 23%My parents chose it for me 14 16%Many of my classmates were doing it 8 9%Other reasons 5 6%My teachers recommended it 4 4%



interviewees had received PT not just for enrichment purposes, but to catch up to the level oftheir classmates and fulfil the general requirements of mainstream schooling (i.e., for remedialpurposes). Extract 2 taken from the interview of Participant 4 refers to this idea.

Extract 2:Participant 4: I had tutoring sessions in Maths and Physics in Grade 11 because these subjectswere complicated and taught in English. . .my parents suggested having tutoring to me tocatch up with my peers.

Advantages and disadvantages of PT

This section now examines the benefits and disadvantages associated with PT from the 8 in-terviewees’ perspectives. As shown in Table 5, all the interviewees found PT useful for coachingfor the university entrance exams, namely IELTS and the SAT Subjects Test (mathematics,physics, and biology). They felt that private tutors had helped them be more committed toachieving their main goal of attending this highly selective university, by having extensivepractice similar test items along with learning certain techniques to help them answer thequestions. This was mainly because 6 out of 8 interviewees mentioned that they were not trainedin how to take these high-stakes exams through their secondary schooling. Two interviewees (2and 5) who had attended Nazarbayev intellectual schools stated that IELTS preparation wasincluded in the curriculum of their schools, but they still needed PT to have more practice in theIELTS and SAT tests. It can be inferred that all interviewees articulated the tangible benefits ofPT in terms of measurable educational outcomes. This finding seems to concur with Bray andKwo’s (2014, p. ix) suggestion that PT tends to put emphasis largely on one dimension ofeducation: ‘learning to know’ more than the other pillars proposed by the UNESCO DelorsReport (1996), which included learning to do, learning to be, and learning to live together. Brayand Kwo (2014) attributed this to the overemphasis on high-stakes examinations functioning asprincipal gate-keeping mechanisms.

As can be seen in Table 5, the interviewees shared their views about the disadvantages ofreceiving PT; namely, creating a financial burden on the family and changing the level of theplaying field. Apart from participant 6, the other participants acknowledged that althoughgaining a place at this highly selective university in Kazakhstan is perceived as a hugeachievement, they would not be able to pass the university entrance exams without the help oftheir private tutors. Related to this, two interviewees (Participants 2 and 3) questioned theissue of equity of access to this university since some students did not enjoy the privilege of PT(see Table 5). They mentioned that PT exacerbates social inequalities and widens the intel-lectual gap between those who can afford PT and those who cannot. This has been found byHajar (2018, 2019) in England, Silova (2009) in Central Asian countries, and Loyalka andZakharov (2016) in Russia. Loyalka and Zakharov (2016), for instance, found that more than50% of the sampled students participated in PT in Russian language and mathematics becausethe scores of these two subjects were considered for college admissions. They also reportedthat PT gave high-achieving students an additional advantage over low-achieving studentswho were competing to enter college and elite colleges. Since PT only benefited high-achievingstudents who were also from high socioeconomic backgrounds, it contributed to greatereducational inequality.



CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS

The overarching aim of this mixed-methods study reported was to find the association betweenPT participation and access to a highly selective university from the experiences and perspectiveof first-year Kazakhstani undergraduate students. The study suggests urban school graduates,the majority of the study participants, were those who had sufficient financial resources toattend PT to help them prepare for the entrance examination and win a state grant to a highlyselective university in Kazakhstan. In Kazakhstan, as in many countries, state tuition grants arevery competitive and only about a quarter of all students enrolling are awarded a full or partialgrant (Chankseliani et al., 2020; OECD, 2017). This has impacts on both social and economic

Table 5. Advantages and disadvantages of PT from the students’ perspectives

Advantages of PT Disadvantages of PT

Test familiarisation and practiceI had many mock IELTS tests, but my score didn’texceed 5. Therefore, I hired a private tutor to trainme in the IELTS test for five months. . .She taughtme many effective strategies for the IELTS test, andthis helped me obtain Band 6 in IELTS.(Participant 7)In the 11th Grade I recognised that it was essentialto have tutoring to prepare myself for theuniversity entrance exams. Therefore, I had grouptutoring for IELTS preparation, and then I hadtutoring in Maths to pass the SAT SubjectsTest. . ..I learnt to solve problems much faster andsee the solutions to the equations at once. Withouttutoring, it is very difficult to pass this test(Participant 4)At school IELTS lessons were not enough, so I hadto take PT, because my English level was not goodenough to pass the university entrance exam. Forthis reason, I had to take additional sessions.(Participant 2)Increased responsibility and self-disciplineI am sometimes lazy. My tutor helped me organizemy time and be more disciplined by giving mestrict deadlines to complete tasks in preparationfor the university test. He motivated me to see myprogress. (Participant 8)Classroom environmentIn private tutoring, every student is given moretime, because there are fewer people. There weremore than 30 students in the class. With 3-4students, we learnt faster and it’s more convenient.Everything was clear. (Participant 1)

Changing the level of the playing fieldI believe that private tutoring extends the

intellectual stratification between students whocan afford it and those who cannot. . .InKazakhstan, many families cannot afford

private tutoring and thus students might notpass the exams required to study at thisuniversity. . .some procedures for helpinglowincome families should be created.

(Participant 3)Without private tutoring, I could not get therequired score for the IELTS exam to join this

university. (Participant 2)Create a financial burden

I had to work hard with my private tutorsbecause my parents paid a lot of money. It also

consumed my time (Participant 5)The university entrance tests on Chemistry

and Biology were combined, but I had to studyBiology and Chemistry separately, paying a lotof money. . . tutoring sessions are expensive,and their high prices prevent many students

from taking them. (participant 6)



inequality because not all students or their parents can afford PT, especially those living in ruralareas. One way to help rural school graduates enter prestigious universities in their countries is‘the contextual admissions approach’ (Chankseliani et al., 2020, p. 1007) by considering ap-plicants’ geographical origins for higher education selection. The findings of this study supportthe argument that most families realise the need to invest at the senior-secondary level to securestate tuition grants for support their children at tertiary level. That is, although PT coaching topass high-stakes exams and to secure state grants at that highly selective university constitutes afinancial burden for many families, it is more affordable and effective than enrolling inKazakhstani Universities which charge high tuition fees. Accordingly, policies that increase thenumber of students admitted to elite institutions and enhance the quality of public institutionscould be explored.

As the phenomenon of PT has expanded to reach almost all corners of the globe, be absorbedinto the education culture and gained ‘more pragmatic and normative legitimacy’ (Zhang &Bray, 2020, p. 331), it would be hard and unrealistic to eliminate or ban it altogether. Conse-quently, some governments have attempted to regulate PT markets by introducing codes ofpractice (see Bray, Kobakhidze, & Kwo, 2020; Bray & Kwo, 2014; Zhang & Bray, 2020). InChina, for instance, one of the regulatory PT mechanisms means that tutorial companies areprohibited from covering the official school curriculum in advance, to protect schools and takethe pressure off students from a disadvantaged background who cannot seek PT to catch up withtheir classmates (Zhang & Bray, 2020). However, In Kazakhstan, the context of this study, thegovernment’s attempt to regulate the PT market has largely been confined to asking privatetutors to purchase a license and pay taxes to legally offer PT (Silova, 2010). However, mosttutors are reluctant to declare their additional income, considering it a necessary survivalstrategy. Silova (2010, p. 340) asserts that ‘imperfect legislation, lack of implementationmechanisms, and absence of legal enforcement’ describes the PT market in central Asiancountries. Zhang and Bray (2020, p. 331) suggest enhancing the partnership between the au-thorities and ‘schools, teachers’ unions, other government branches, community bodies, and themedia’ to develop a regulatory policy. Zhang and Bray (2020) point out how an online tutoringcompany in the US, emphasising grades and admission to higher education, provides freetutoring to military families funded by the US Department of Defense and the Coast GuardMutual Assistance. In addressing the issue of equitable access to schools and universities, Kirby(2016) also suggests that the UK government could expand non-profit and state tuition pro-grammes such as the Tutor Trust, to offer the advantages of tutoring to more disadvantagedstudents.

While the current study has provided some evidence of the importance of understanding thelink between PT and access to higher education from the students’ point of view, it has limi-tations. In particular, it was a small-scale study and relied only on questionnaire data collectedfrom 144 students in Engineering followed by interviews with 8 students, all from one universityin Kazakhstan. Hence, future large-scale studies which include the perceptions of students withand without tutoring, from different disciplines, together with the viewpoints of parents andpractitioners, would enrich the database. An area of the field of PT worthy of additional researchrelates to understanding the nature and effectives of online PT during the COVID-19 pandemic,which has affected educational systems worldwide, leading to the near-total closures of schools,universities and colleges. As �Sťastn�y and Kobakhidze (2020, p. 10–11) suggest, ‘attention mustalso be given to emerging new forms of tutoring such as “education pods”, “Zutors” (i.e. Zoom



tutors) and “microschools”, which have been pushed by parents’ initiatives worldwide as a resultof the pandemic.’

Funding: This project is supported by the Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Education[064.01.00/201705 SPG (Social Policy Grant)].

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance provided by Professor Mark Bray at theUniversity of Hong Kong and to thank the two anonymous reviewers and the editors for theirinsightful comments and editorial support.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Anas Hajar is a graduate of Warwick University holding a PhD in English Language Education.He worked as a Postdoctoral Research and Teaching Fellow at Warwick, Coventry and ChristChurch Universities in the UK and at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in Hong Kong SAR.He is currently an Assistant Professor of Multilingual Education at Nazarbayev University inKazakhstan. He is particularly interested in motivational issues in language learning andintercultural engagement. He also works in the areas of internationalization and educationabroad, language learning strategies and shadow education.Saule Abenova holds a master’s degree in multilingual education. She is particularly interestedin individual differences in second language learning and shadow education.

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APPENDIX A

General information for all respondents.

1. Which school did you graduate from?

School name. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .Town/city. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .

2. Have you received the following types of tutoring in the past 2 years? (Tick all that apply)

If ‘NO’, you can finish the questionnaire at this stage.

3. How long did you receive private tutoring?

4. In which subjects did you receive private tutoring during the last 2 years?

Gender Age Residential type

☐ Male☐ Female ——————————— years old

☐ Urban☐ Rural

☐ Private one-to-one ☐ Large group (10 or above students)No. of students: ——————

☐ Small group (less than 10 students)No. of students: —————————

☐ Online tutoring

☐ others (please specify) ☐ No tutoring

☐ 3 months or less☐ 4–6 months☐ 6–12 months☐ 12–18 month☐ 2 years

☐ Mathematics ☐ Chemistry☐ English ☐ Physics☐ Kazakh ☐ Biology☐ Russian ☐ Others (please state)



5. Why did you take private tutoring in the past 2 years? (Tick all that apply)

6. How much did private tutoring cost you on average per month?

7. If you are willing to take part in a follow-up interview, please write your email address here_____________

APPENDIX B

Selected interview questions

Indicative interview protocol for students with PT.

1. Have you received private tutoring in the last two years? In what subject?2. Why did you choose to take private tutoring? Who suggested it?3. What did you learn in private lessons?4. Did you enjoy private lessons? Were they useful? Why?5. Are there any disadvantages of attending private lessons?6. Did your parents know about your progress? What sort of things did they say?7. Do you think private tutoring had an impact on your university placement? How?8. What do you feel about the impact of tutoring on the wider society?

Open Access. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, andreproduction in any medium for non-commercial purposes, provided the original author and source are credited, a link to the CCLicense is provided, and changes – if any – are indicated.

☐ 20.000 tenge or less☐ 20.000–40.000 tenge☐ 50.000–70.000 tenge☐ 80.000–90.000 tenge☐ 100.000 tenge or more

☐ I was preparing for universityentrance exams

☐ I wanted to improve my exam scoresat school

☐ I wanted to learn subjects better☐ My parents chose it for me☐ Many of my classmates were doing it☐ My teachers recommended it☐ Others (please specify) __________



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the role of private tutoring in admission to higher

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